Shakespeare's Treatment of Women in the Tragedies Hamlet, Othello and Antony and Cleopatra

Shakespeare, it is claimed by many
modern critics, was a feminist. Shapiro for example goes
so far as to claim that Shakespeare was 'the noblest
feminist of them all'. Although I am inclined to agree
with McLuskie that as Shakespeare 'wrote for a male
entertainment', it is historically incorrect to regard
him as a feminist. I believe that Shakespeare because of
his extraordinary genius for portraying human behaviour,
necessarily depicted the condition of women within a
patriarchal system and created women characters which in
their richness, transcend the limitations of his time.

In this essay I will explore chiefly Shakespeare's
treatment of the three heroine's Ophelia, Desdemona and
Cleopatra, of the tragedies Hamlet, Othello and Antony
and Cleopatra, beginning with an exploration of
Shakespeare's representation of the effects of a
patriarchal system upon the characters.

Ophelia, it would seem, wholly at the mercy of the male
figures within her life, is certainly a victim figure.
Although it has been claimed by critics that Hamlet is
unique amongst Shakespeare's tragic heroes for not being
to blame for the tragedy of the play, if we are to
consider the death of the heroine as part of this tragedy
then surely we must question Hamlet's innocence. In his
treatment of Ophelia, Hamlet oscillates between protests
of undying love and cruelty such as his cold and accusing
speech in the 'nunnery scene'. In short, Hamlet
throughout the play uses Ophelia as a tool in his revenge
plan.

To examine this culpability more deeply however, it could
be suggested that it is Queen Gertrude's behaviour that
has instigated Hamlet's unforgivable treatment of Ophelia:
She transgresses the patriarchal bounds of femininity by
marrying so soon after her husband's death and not
remaining in passive grief and obedient devotion to his
memory. This provides Hamlet with a model of women's
inconstancy. His bitterness leads him to believe that all
women are untrustworthy - 'Frailty thy name is woman' and
as R. S. White puts it, Hamlet projects upon Ophelia the
'guilt and pollution' he believes exist in Gertrude's
behaviour. However we view his culpability, Ophelia
suffers as a result of Hamlet's patriarchal values of
womanhood.

With regard to her father and brother, the two direct
ruling male forces in her life, Ophelia is also very much
a victim. Unquestioningly obeying their remonstrances
against pursuing a relationship with Hamlet, she rejects
his advances - which of course she believes to be genuine
- and thus when he pretends to be mad she believes it to
be her fault. Her speech reflects her deep and genuine
sorrow:

And I of ladies, most deject and
wretched
That sucked honey of his music vows ...
O woe is me.

Ophelia's feeling of guilt is reinforced
by Polonius's insistence to King Claudius:

But Yet I do believe
The origin and commencement of this grief
Sprung from neglected love

Polonius's conviction, in which one can't
help believing, stems from a mercenary desire to marry
his daughter off to such an eligible husband as the
prince of Denmark, rather than a genuine belief in his
daughter's role in causing Hamlet's madness.

Thus when Hamlet murders her father, Ophelia enters a
double realm of guilt, believing herself to be to blame
for both Hamlet's madness and her father's death. As a
result she becomes mad. Although at one level this
decline into madness sets Ophelia up indisputably as a
victim figure, on a deeper level perhaps her madness
itself can be seen as Ophelia's active rejection of
patriarchal restraint. Charney Maurice suggests that
since within Renaissance drama madwomen were 'more
strongly defined than madmen', and women's madness was 'interpreted
as something specifically feminine', through depictions
of madness dramatists were able to give women a chance to
express their selfhood - 'make a forceful assertion of
their being' - in a way which patriarchal conventions
would otherwise have prevented.

In the later tragedy, Othello, it can also be
argued that the tragedy occurs from adherence to
patriarchal rules and stereotypes. Gayle Greene
summarises this position in her claim that the tragedy of
Othello stems from 'men's misunderstandings of women and
women's inability to protect themselves from society's
conception of them'. Certainly Desdemona's very much
feminised qualities of passivity, softness and obedience
are no match for Othello's masculine qualities of
dominance, aggression and authority. After Othello in his
jealousy has struck Desdemona and spoken harshly to her,
she tells Iago, 'I am a child to chiding'. Protected by a
system which makes women the weaker, dependent sex,
Desdemona is unequipped to deal with such aggression; she
is helpless against Othello. As Dreher puts it 'following
conventional patterns of behaviour for wives and
daughters, these women lose their autonomy and intimacy
and do not achieve adulthood'. Desdemona thus retreats
into childlike behaviour to escape from reality.

With regard to men's misunderstandings of women, Greene
points out that Iago's manipulation of Othello - the
cause of the tragedy - occurs only because of 'the views
of women the moor already possessed'. This is certainly a
convincing argument, for Othello all-too-easily accepts a
stereotypical view of his wife based on the authority of
a male voice. He loses sight of the real Desdemona,
allowing every action of hers, once his suspicion is
stimulated, to reaffirm this stereotypical conception of
her.

At the close of the play Othello attempts to vindicate
himself from intentional murder by claiming that he did
nothing 'in malice', but is simply a man 'that loved not
wisely but too well'. This speech illustrates the
precarious position of love in a society submerged in
stereotypes. Othello's excessive, 'unwise' love for
Desdemona is tied up with his perception of her as
representing perfect womanhood, and his underlying fear
of her - endorsed by society - as whore. Like Hamlet, who
tells Ophelia 'get thee to a nunnery' in order to protect
her chastity and remove his fear of woman's infidelity,
Othello too wishes to erase Desdemona's sexuality and
potential for infidelity. His decision to kill her, he
claims, is to prevent her from a further transgression -
'Yet she must die, else she'll betray more men'. As Iago's
insinuations build, the gulf between this perception of
Desdemona as angel and the fear of her as whore grows,
leaving Othello in a void of confusion and doubt:

. . . By the world,
I think my wife be honest, and think she is not.
I think thou [Iago] art just, and then think thou art
not.

In Othello's refusal to hear Desdemona's
own protestations of innocence, Othello is very much a
tragedy in which the female is subordinated by the male.

In Antony and Cleopatra, Shakespeare again
explores the idea of the victim within a patriarchal
society. However, in this play the gender roles are
inverted and it is Antony who is the true victim. Stifled
by the rules of the patriarchal society of Rome which
expects him to retain a masculine side only, and not to
adopt the feminine qualities of passion, emotion, and
love, Antony's control over his life diminishes. Within
such patriarchal confines the role of lover must be
subordinate to the male's political role. After finding
an extraordinary and powerful love with Cleopatra - which
Shakespeare establishes to perfection - Antony is unable
to accept the 'business first' principle of the
patriarchal laws. Like the typical female heroine of a
tragedy, Antony's plight escalates when he is rushed into
an arranged marriage of convenience. He cannot remain
away from Cleopatra and faithful to Octavia who
symbolises Caesar and the power of Patriarchal Rome. He
says 'though I make this marriage for my peace,/ I'th'
East my pleasure lies'. Inevitably he returns to Egypt
and Cleopatra, and causes a rift which can never again be
cemented between himself and Caesar, which ultimately
results in war.

The first words of the play, spoken by Philo, illustrate
the growing condemnation of Antony's untraditional
behaviour, which is not confined within the 'measure' of
patriarchy: 'Nay but this dotage of our General's / O'erflows
the measure'. The patriarchal males view Antony's
devotion as shameful - 'His captain's heart ... become
the bellows and the fan / To cool a gipsy's lust'.
Surprisingly, in modern-day readings of the play, this
attitude still exists: in W. Baker's view of the play -
in my opinion a view grossly over simplified - 'throughout
the play [Antony] is suffering from a disease, his
passion for Cleopatra, which obsesses his mind and which
causes him to desert his public responsibilities'. It is
true that the play is ultimately concerned with the
conflict between love and politics; Egypt and Rome; but
to simply reject the former as wrong, is to miss the
nuances of the play and succumb to a view of the
polarities of masculine and feminine as separated and
distinct, which the play itself undercuts.

Although Antony occasionally lapses into judging himself
by the standards of the patriarchy - for example, towards
the end of the play dejected and shamed by his diminished
political power, he becomes jealous and irrational and
claims that Cleopatra has emasculated him: 'O thy vile
lady, / She has robbed me of my sword.' In the conflict
between love and politics - love wins. Ultimately, Antony
is not debased by his loss of power, but rather, through
his love of Cleopatra envelops a manhood of stronger
parameters - an 'alternative masculinity' as Woodbridge
puts it. The end of the play can be seen as a tribute to
love; a celebration rather than a downfall. Antony does
not cease to be a valiant Roman by choosing Egypt over
Rome; love over politics, but becomes vanquisher of
himself in his suicide. By dying simultaneously in the
Roman fashion, and with Cleopatra and for Cleopatra (he
kills himself when he believes she is dead), Antony
combines the two polarities which have been evident and
separate throughout the play: the masculine Rome and the
feminine Egypt.

Cleopatra's masculine qualities counterbalance the play,
so Shakespeare provides us with a relationship of
surprising equality. Neither Cleopatra nor the
relationship can be stifled within the confines of the
patriarchy of the seventeenth century. The distinctions
between masculine and feminine are blurred - in a sense
Antony and Cleopatra swap roles, continually embracing
both their masculine and feminine selves and thus
experiencing a full bonding of souls. As Woodbridge says,
'Antony and Cleopatra can cross gender boundaries without
losing their sex roles as man or woman'. This swapping of
gender roles is rather shockingly portrayed in the scene
in which Cleopatra puts her 'tires and mantles on [Antony]
whilst / [she] wore his sword Phillipan'. Shakespeare
evidently recognises the existence of both masculine and
feminine qualities within females and males.

Cleopatra, unlike Othello and Ophelia, is the dominating
force of the play in terms of theme and also her personal
presence. Novy claims that Antony and Cleopatra is the
only tragedy that 'glorifies woman as actor'. Through his
treatment of Cleopatra, Shakespeare provides us with a 'real'
woman rather than a stereotype. Velma Richmond claims
further that in Cleopatra we can find Shakespeare's 'finest
embracing of the feminine'. Cleopatra through the
combination of sexual and political power is a force to
be reckoned with.

Cleopatra's sexuality, despite condemnation by the
patriarchal men - she is referred to as 'strumpet' and 'whore'
on various occasions throughout the play - is unhidden
and unrestricted. Her sexual power over men is conveyed
boldly, for example, in her descriptions of her former
conquests 'great Pompey' and 'Broad-fronted Caesar'.
Cleopatra's sexuality is not a thing to be locked up, as
in Hamlet and Othello, but is
celebrated as a positive force. Surprisingly, even
Enobarbus, despite his patriarchal views, does on
occasions present her as positively sexual, as his
unforgettable description of her indicates:

Age cannot wither her,
Nor custom stale her infinite variety. Other women
cloy
The appetites they feed, but she makes hungry
Where most she satisfies. For vilest things
Become themselves in her, that the holy priests
Bless she is riggish.

Refusing to adhere to the stereotypes of
patriarchal society, Cleopatra transforms her natural
sexuality into part of her power, rather than as a
diminishing of her goodness.

So too, Cleopatra insists on fulfilling a political role
against the wishes of the patriarchal men: when Enobarbus
attempts to prevent her from doing so she replies in
enraged determination:

A charge we bear i'th'war,
And as the president of my kingdom will
Appear there for a man. Speak not against it.
I will not stay behind.

Cleopatra thus forces her access into the
male arena, where Ophelia and Desdemona do not - and
cannot of course, in the same way, for in her status as a
middle aged woman and Queen of Egypt, Cleopatra naturally
has more freedom. She is not dependent upon anyone
financially, as are Ophelia and Desdemona.

Ophelia, the dominated daughter, is completely dependent.
Although a flash of her potential self-will shines
through at the beginning of the play, when we learn that
Ophelia has entertained Hamlet unchaperoned or without
paternal consent, this is stifled very quickly by
Polonius and Laertes - the double voice of the patriarchy
- telling her that she is naive and that her behaviour is
unsuitable. Ophelia, daunted by their claims that she has
mistaken Hamlet's love, assumes that her father and
brother necessarily know best and replies simply 'I will
obey'. Shakespeare shows, however, that it is this
obedience of Ophelia's that leads to her own destruction,
and illustrates that when the guiding male is like the
cynical Polonius or the unperceptive Laertes, the fate of
the subordinate female is considerably threatened.

While Ophelia then, silently and obediently accepts the
oppression of male power, turning her distress in upon
herself in her madness, Desdemona does display some
traces of a more Cleopatra-like self-assertion. In her
choosing of Othello as her husband, she exercises her own
desire, subverting the female role of passivity within
the patriarch, and marries him without parental consent.
This is a rather courageous act of will, which could have
resulted in much strife. However, she handles the
situation with a cleverness and a manipulation which
outwits the male judges who listen to her. When her
father questions her about her marriage she answers
forcefully, first pacifying him and then justifying her
disobedience on the very grounds of patriarchal obedience
and duty:

. . . My noble father,
I do perceive here a divided duty.
To you I am bound, for life and education . . .
You are the lord of my duty,
I am hitherto your daughter. But here's my husband,
And so much duty as my mother showed
To you preferring you before her father,
So much I challenge that I may profess
Due to the Moor my lord.

Desdemona by her cleverness thus appears
obedient in her disobedience.

Shakespeare shows Desdemona's behaviour in her
relationship with Othello before the marriage to be
slightly manipulative also. For Desdemona tells Othello
in a very suggestive way after she has fallen in love
with him, as Othello himself relates - 'if I had a friend
that loved [me]/ I should but teach him how to tell [your]
story,/ And that would woo [me]'. However, when she is
married she slips into the role of the submissive wife.
Obedient to Othello's every command, she says to Emilia -
after Othello tells her peremptorily 'Get you to bed on
th'instant' - 'we must not now displease him'. At this
point Desdemona becomes more of a stereotype, her
identity disappearing as Othello's jealousy becomes more
defined. Her identity diminishes until she fits into the
stereotype of the silent woman. Othello denies her right
to a voice when he soliloquises 'Was this fair paper,
this most goodly book,/ Made to write 'whore' upon?'

Obedience and silence were very much part of the
patriarchal conception of femininity. A conception to
which Cleopatra refuses to adhere. When Charmian
traditionally suggests that the way to gain and retain
Antony's love is to 'In each thing give him way; Cross
him in nothing'. Cleopatra replies, 'Thou teachest like a
fool, the way to lose him'. Far from being the silent
woman, Cleopatra makes her voice heard whenever she
wishes, challenging and meeting challenges. She mocks
Antony and quarrels with him. Challenging him with a
masculine aggression when they argue - 'I would I had
thine inches. Thou shouldst know/ There were a heart in
Egypt'. Spirited and passionate, such displays of
assertion as her physical attack on the messenger
informing her of Antony's marriage to Octavia, are a far
cry from the passive silent role of the feminine in
patriarchal society. In passionate disbelief and anger,
she draws a knife on the messenger and strikes him with
her bare hands. Charmian tries to pacify her by telling
her 'Good madam keep yourself within yourself', but
Cleopatra escapes the bounds of self-composure and the
repression of self-hood. Her reaction when she feels
herself wronged is in very stark contrast to the
reactions of Ophelia and Desdemona.

Linda Baber explains that the relative weakness of the
characters of Desdemona and Ophelia is due to artistic
device, as opposed to Shakespeare's misrepresentation of
womanhood. Baber claims that they are 'psychologically
neutral characters who take on the coloration of the
plays' moods'. Thus, their personalities are not fully
developed. James Hill similarly says of the heroines of
the tragedies that we are not shown 'their inner lives'
or their 'inner conflicts'. However, in the case of
Desdemona, I think it is a mistake not to recognise her
as an active force within the play. As Brian Shaffer
suggests Othello's punishment of Desdemona becomes the
crime itself, subverting the domestic tragedy of the
Elizabethan stage. These tragedies traditionally involve
the process of marriage; 'disintegration' and then
punishment and death. The conception of woman's
inferiority to man in these tragedies is undercut by
Shakespeare for he shows Desdemona to be the virtuous
character who is finally vindicated.

Desdemona's goodness furthermore is not simply passive or
weak but an act of will. Her refusal to blame Othello for
his terrible treatment of her, when he suspects her of
betrayal, must not be viewed as simple subservience but
as a self-willed refusal to accept a bad opinion of the
husband she has chosen. When he is behaving deplorably
towards her she refuses to acknowledge his identity - 'My
lord is not my lord,' she says 'nor should I know him /
Were he in favour as in humour altered'. She stands by
her acceptance of her love for him as something sacred,
with a martyr-like determination: she tells Emilia 'his
unkindness may defeat my life, / But never taint my love.'
She thus obeys her own heart rather than patriarchal
rules, extending this determination through to death, so
that with her last breath - when Emilia asks 'who hath
done this deed?' she can reply 'Nobody, I myself'.
Othello's conviction that even upon dying she lies by
claiming this self-death bears witness to the whole
tragedy of the play, Othello's inability to see beneath
the surface of stereotypical conceptions of femininity.
By claiming this death for herself she re-affirms her
self-hood. Metaphorically then she dies for her love
which cannot be tainted, not from Othello's hands. In
Hamlet too, Ophelia's death can perhaps be seen as an act
of assertion and escape from the confining patriarchal
world.

Unsurprisingly though, it is through the character of
Cleopatra that Shakespeare really depicts death as an
assertion of self-hood and an act of defiance to the
patriarchal laws. Cleopatra's death becomes an act of
triumph over Caesar - the representative of patriarchal
Rome. On finding her dead, one of his guards says, 'Caesar's
beguiled'. Through death Cleopatra not only transcends
the world of oppression and fate, but embraces her death
as a positive act rather than as an act of negation:

My desolation does begin to make a
better life
. . . And it is great
To do that thing that ends all other deeds,
Which shackles accidents and bolts up change

Cleopatra combines feminine and masculine
qualities through her death. With her resolution to take
on the masculine quality of rationality and firmness and
courage she wills, 'I have nothing of woman in me. Now
from head to foot/ I am marble constant'. She rejects her
feminine qualities of water and the changeability of the
moon and transforms herself into 'air and fire'. So too
she embraces Antony's masculinity and the world of Rome
by dying in 'the true Roman Fashion'. Yet through her
death, Shakespeare depicts her as enacting the strength
of womanhood by converting death into an image of both
sensuality and motherhood. The pain of death is bitter-sweet
and sensual 'as a lover's pinch,/which hurts and is
desired' and the asp, the vehicle of death is a 'baby at
[her] breast,/That sucks the nurse asleep'. Through death
she is reborn and even the stern patriarchal Caesar is
forced to admit to her bravery, and to the undeniable
nobility and royalty of the woman who 'Took her own way'.
Through his representation of womanhood, especially in
the character of Cleopatra, Shakespeare indeed does
transcend the stereotypes of his own time.